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Money, money, money.

High-value homes for high-ups
By Mehtab Haider

ISLAMABAD: The government plans to construct 1000 luxurious apartments for influential bureaucrats (occupational group only) to be handed over to them after their retirement in the next five years, official sources confided to `The News’ Friday.The non-occupational group including economists, doctors, engineers, teachers, scientists etc will not be provided these apartments after their retirement, official sources quoted a summary moved by Ministry of Housing to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz as saying. The occupational group consists of the DMG, police, accounts, post office, secretariat, foreign services etc.

A copy of the summary moved by the ministry before the prime minister and available with `The News’ states, the CDA may allocate 200 acres of land in Islamabad at reserve price for Federal Government Employees (FGE) Housing Foundation for construction of sufficient number of apartments to meet the requirements of the officers retiring during 2007-2012. The summary also proposed that the CDA may also be advised to earmark the portion of every new sector for meeting the future requirements of land for the officers retiring beyond June 2012. “Revolving funds amounting to Rs500 million may be provided by the finance division for initiating this long-term housing scheme. It will be reimbursed to the government once the scheme takes off successfully,” the summary states. The summary also requested the prime minister to ensure the provision of utility services in IESCO and SNGPL for this housing scheme in the minimum possible time without charging any additional amount. The scheme will initially be launched at Islamabad and subsequently be extended to all the four provincial capitals depending upon the response from the officers and the availability of lands.

We don’t have the money for education, or providing the basics of life to the citizens of Pakistan, yet we have Rs.500 million for a new housing scheme to benefit, yet again, the bureaucrats.

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About the Author

Huma Imtiaz works as a journalist. Originally from Pakistan, she is currently based in Washington, DC and likes her cocktails with a dash of sarcasm. She can be contacted at huma[dot]imtiaz[at]gmail[dot]com

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my father’s a dmg officer. right now, he’s joint secretary ministry of industries. in other words, he’s the 3rd from the top in country regarding the department of industries. he’ll turn 50 in 2008, and he’s been in the service since he was 23.

he’s a pathan who rose quite literally from the village, where all his other brothers (two of them have M.A degrees in eng. lit) reside. he came 3rd in the country in the CSS exams, and after that he was offered a 3 year paid scholarship to a univ in paris which he didn’t take up (god knows why). bureaucrats are supposed to serve in atleast two provinces, my father’s served in 3, at the cost of, among other things, his children’s education.

do you know how much he gets paid? 50k. Actually, 43k, if you charge income tax, house allocation tax (even though we haven’t been able to get a government house, as yet) and other varying taxes. those are the wages of an MBA in his first or second year of work.

musharraf screwed over the bureaucracy by dismantling the comissioners and throwing in worthless nazims, who have done far, far worse than any bureaucrat every could.

i do agree, that so many bureaucrats are incredibly corrupt. but if you earn 43k a month, after you’ve given your life to your country, and you have NO power (which is what makes bureaucracy interesting in the first place), can you really do anything BUT be corrupt? again, not justifying the corrupt bureaucrats, just stating why they’re corrupt.

still, you are right. that 500 million and those apartment ARE going to fall to those corrupt sons of bitches who have done more than their fair bit in turning this country into a shithole.

We expect bureaucrats (very smart, anywhere in the world) to be honest, hardworking and what not? Their intelligence is never utilised, their ideas never implemented in totality. Very soon, they lose their enthusiasm and resort to less than ideal behaviour.
Don’t they have right to feel jealous if people less smart than them, less hardworking and less responsible than them making more money? That’s no justification for corruption. But if governement rewards them like this, probably it will help them to be less corrupt to that extent.
Until we embrace capitalism of highest kind, we cannot wish to provide reasonable amenities to everybody.
If we keep waiting for everybody to prosper before we allow something to somebody, we are going to wait forever.
Only through economic activty, lives can be bettered. Let govt construct more houses, more roads, more dams, still better, much better allow pvt enterprises to do all these and more. Let there be more greed, more selling. Just ensure that there is fair competition. Like in mobile services / new tv channels. (I am talking about India) Let there be debate, yes lot of it is trash, but still there is value in it.

the entire system is in shambles – its a dog eat dog world, and the bureaucrats have become experts at exploiting the flaws of the system. asfand – i understand completely what you mean, and when people talk to me about how the police [for example] is corrupt, i ask them to take a moment and think about how much salary an average police wala is getting.

the point is – we all know that 500 million is not going to the cause of rewarding honest employees – it’ll be used to beef up bank accounts, acquire land at throwaway prices, and it goes on and on. sometimes i wonder how we live in this nation knowing every cent we pay taxes with is going to buy more bulletproof limos.

i agree, unfortunately the notions on the surface seem good but they’ll inevitably end up in the hands of the worthless corrupt ones.

the entire system is in shambles, which is what makes everyone going in an uproar about one incident all the more infuriating. i’m not pointing a finger at you here, cause i know you’ve long been saying that its all gone to hell, but so many other people going nuts.

and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better, what with all the madrassas in islamabad seemingly feeling the need to invoke vigilante shariah justice.